Free This Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs

bags.
    I have the kerosene and the useless lantern. She has bottles of pills, ibuprofen, Pepcid Complete, expired amoxicillin, Lasix, Neosporin, and a bottle with five Cialis. I have a box of spaghetti. She has two shirts and a pair of pants that might be big enough for me. I have a cheap bottle of white wine; the twist-off cap is a blessing. She has very old tampons, circa 1983 it looks like. I have a can of Rotel brand tomatoes. She has a bottle of witch hazel. I have prunes. She has a jar of ancient Vaseline. I have a box of votive candles.
    From what I can tell, the people of Granny-shambler’s house all share the traits of being old, liking spicy food, and getting constipated. Someone might be having sex, maybe poor Chuck T’s mother. I can’t imagine who the Cialis might be for.
    It’s a toss-up if the candles are a bigger score than the shitty wine.
    “Light a candle and turn around,” she says, voice pitched low. “I’m going to look at your burns.”
    I do what she says, and I’m struck that it seems so natural for me to follow her lead. I always rankled when Angelyne bossed me around. But with Lucy . . . it’s different. Is it because she’s a doctor? Because she’s more beautiful? Or because she’s both?
    I rotate myself, using my hands, but remain cross-legged.
    She scoots the loot aside—not before twisting the cap off of the wine and taking a swig—then crawls forward. She hands me the bottle, and I drink.
    “Wait.” She pops open a bottle of pills and puts four little brown ones into my hand. I can hear her rattle some into her own palm.
    “Ibuprofen. Take them.”
    I pop them in my mouth and wash them down with the wine. The wine makes my mouth pucker, too tart and too sweet all at once. But when it has gone down the pipe, my stomach burns a little more and my neck, my ears, and my arms burn a little less.
    I hear the crackling of paper and realize she’s unwrapping a tampon. She squirts witch hazel on the tampon and begins to swab my neck with it. It stings. It hurts. More than you can imagine. I suck air through clenched teeth.
    I don’t crack jokes about the tampon.
    She chuckles.
    I ask, “What?”
    “Just this morning—was it this morning? it seems so long ago—I told myself I don’t do wet work.”
    “Wet work?”
    “Dealing with patients. Hands-on doctor stuff.”
    “You can’t say that anymore.”
    “No. I can’t.”
    I wince. Whatever she’s doing back there really stings. When I have a moment, I ask, “What exactly is witch hazel?”
    She stops wiping my burns. I look back and see she’s trying to read the label.
    “You know . . .” she murmurs, “I have no idea. A plant maybe. I know it has lots of alcohol in it, and that’s why I’m putting it on your neck. To clean it.”
    Her legs go to either side of mine. She starts working on my ears.
    Her fingers feel cool on my skin, and I can smell the kiwi scent of her hair.
    “Well, you’ll never grow another mullet.”
    I stifle the laugh.
    “We won’t suffocate, will we? You know, from the candle?” I ask, and my voice sounds loud in the small space. “Since we’ve taped everything up?” She’s a doctor and knows these things. Except about witch hazel.
    “It’s either carbon monoxide poisoning or anoxia, using up all of the oxygen in an environment. I think we need to extinguish it at some point. It could kill us . . . maybe. But only if we’ve created an airtight seal, which I doubt. Cracks in the walls, gaps in the windows, spaces in the tiles . . . I don’t know. But sound travels through air. Radioactive particles travel through air. So we’re killing two birds with one stone by taping the windows. But we need light right nowfor a few minutes. And I’ve got the corner of the window still untaped. I hope that’ll be enough. I haven’t heard anything downstairs.”
    She falls silent. Maybe realizing she was talking, well, too much.
    Lucy finishes my ears, takes out another tampon, squirts more